Don’t. The sharp command, however, had no effect. Tonya whipped in Kiara’s direction and launched.
But Kiara wasn’t a wolf.
She lifted her hand and cast a quick, protective spell. The vapors hit what looked like a solid wall and dissipated only to reform almost as quickly.
Tonya appeared enraged. Then her image suddenly grew clearer. She looked around. No. This is all wrong. She turned to meet Warren’s gaze. My darling, I’m so sorry. Forgive me for whatever this was.
With that, she disappeared.
Even the air around Kiara felt different. She turned in a full circle to make sure Tonya was no longer there just to confirm what she sensed. But she was nowhere to be seen.
She turned to face Warren. He parted his lips as though to speak, but closed them as quickly. This is not the woman I knew, the woman I married.
Kiara pivoted toward the garden and began moving slowly up the path away from the house. “Warren, I don’t understand. I can sense she has great power, but what’s wrong with her? And why doesn’t she live here in Savage, with you?”
He caught up with her and matched her stride, but he didn’t speak right away.
The garden was full of boulders and junipers and several meandering paths. Pine trees, like the ones in the Savage forest, kept the garden shaded during the day and the ground smelling sweetly from the constantly falling needles.
Though she longed to hear his response, she worked hard to let the moment breathe. Yet somehow, what he said next felt critical to her as in life-changing. If he refused to explain anything, she would know he’d closed her out and meant to keep it that way.
On the other hand, if he trusted her enough to talk about Tonya, well, her heart beat harder at what that would mean.
Warren wasn’t an easily knowable man. Over the years, she’d only engaged in a real conversation with him a handful of times. Each time, she’d caught glimpses of both the strong alpha leader he was and the human he’d been before his alter wolf transformation.
She’d wanted to know more. Longed to know. Craved. But he wasn’t one to share much.
When they reached the bottom of the garden, near one of the territory’s main dirt roads, he caught her wrist in a gentle clasp then turned her toward him. “You deserve answers. But the truth is, I’ve never told anyone about my wife.”
She saw the pain in the tight pull of his cheeks and deep furrow between his brows. The silvery scars on the left side of hi
s face rippled then relaxed.
He shoved his hand through his hair. It was sooty and the chemical smell of the recent battle clung to him as it did to her. But she wouldn’t have stopped the moment for anything.
Instead, she waited, letting him gather his thoughts. She could see what this was costing him and wondered yet again what was going on with the witch that she could become a pseudo-ghost.
Finally, Warren released her wrist. He looked over her head as he said. “She has alter dementia. It’s very rare and happened within days of our arrival in Five Bridges.” He touched the side of his face. “She was the witch who did this, my own wife. I still don’t know how she managed it, but she was gifted from the start and had put her spellroom together before the week was out. I should have known something was wrong because she practically lived in that room and had stopped engaging with me. But I was too new to this world to know any different.
“We’d chosen to live in Elegance for her sake. I’d contacted Savage and had been put in touch with Fergus. He was my wolf mentor at the time. He was the one who found me and got me to a witch he knew who reversed the spell. If the paste had hit the center of the bones and entered the marrow, you know all too well what would have happened.”
He shook his head. It took him a moment before he could continue.
“Several witches examined Tonya. The Tribunal had a physician, an expert, who was able to diagnose her condition. She was moved to an asylum in Revel Territory not long after. Fergus brought me to Savage. But even he didn’t know about the origin of the killing spell. I’d let him believe it was a dark witch and that my wife had been killed.”
Kiara had heard of alter dementia, but she’d never known anyone afflicted with the genetic mutation. It only occurred during the initial transformation process but wasn’t always detectable. “I’m so sorry, Warren. That must have been a nightmare for you.”
His voice was quiet as he said, “I visit her every week. She’s rail-thin. The nurses don’t know why she’s still alive.”
“Does she know you when you visit?”
He released a heavy breath. “She knew me last week for about a minute. She held my hand and kept apologizing. She wept. Then her mind slipped back into unreality. For a moment, though, I saw the woman I’d fallen in love with.” His lips curved, but it was the saddest smile she’d ever seen. “We got married on the beach in Doheny, in California. She loved to surf. She had fair skin and always wore a lot of sunblock. There’s not much left of the woman I once knew.”
Kiara had long since made peace with her alter witch state. In fact, her ability to recover from her recent incarceration and torture was because of the acceptance she had for her life in Five Bridges. But even she wasn’t sure how she could have borne seeing someone she loved living a half-life in an alter asylum.
She didn’t know she was shaking her head and staring at the rocks in the path until he caught her arm. “What?”
She looked up at him, at the scarred face that had become so dear to her. “Thank you for telling me. I know it wasn’t easy.”